James Hillman wrote a wonderful book a decade or two ago called "The Soul's Code." It's about how people come into the world more or less knowing what and where they are supposed to be. Just like an acorn "knows" in advance that it will become an oak tree, rather than a poplar, a spruce or a dogwood.
I agree 100 percent with this theory and can say that, if I had listened more to my inner acorn and less to voices and influences outside me, I would have gotten to where I am now, which is in many ways the best place in my life, a whole lot faster.
As a child I was passionate about caring for, learning about and stewarding all manner of plants and animals. We had a patch of dirt outside our apartment's back door, and even at 7 years old I spent my allowance at the nursery, buying coleus, marigolds and pansies for the dirt patch, and houseplants for indoors. Almost all of them died because I lacked the knowledge then to take care of them and my parents had no interest in it and therefore no knowledge to pass on to me, but again and again I still dug into the dirt and tried to grow things.
The same thing went for animals. Once a week, we were allowed to visit the Delavan Science Center across town, and from the minute I got off the school bus to when I heard the toot of the horn that told me it was time to go back, I sat in the small barn on the property and observed the chickens and goats. It would not be an understatement to say I never wanted to leave that barn. I loved it.
But I lived in Los Angeles, and so as I grew up, the city influenced me and I became a quintessential young urban adult, versed in culture and trend but cut off from the dirt and the beating heart of nature and its creatures. I survived, but I made blunder after blunder and wandered through life with no compass or North Star to guide me. It would not be an exaggeration to say I was a lost soul. I was lost to any faith that could help me, and also lost to myself.
I found my acorn again when I bought my first house about 15 years ago. Suddenly I was up to my eyeballs in dirt -- my own dirt -- and back amid nature, even if it was only in my large suburban back yard. I planted trees whose leaves rustled in the wind, made nesting boxes for the wild bird population, and grew things to my heart's content. And it surely is no coincidence that about that time my life finally achieved some honor and some order. I was nurturing my son, nurturing the land and nurturing my animal friends, both wild and domestic. In short, I had finally become the oak tree I was meant to be, rather than the spruce tree I'd been trying (unsuccessfully) to be for far too long.
Nowadays I grow things for food or just because they're beautiful all day long and spend my nights sitting under the thousands of stars that you can see from our property. And the circle is complete. I finally became what I was supposed to. But I wonder how many people out there are still wandering through the desert of life, lacking their own North Star, all because they stopped listening to the inner voice that knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing here, and are instead listening to the well-meaning friends and family members, or even the media or their culture, instead.
I hope everyone reading this honors their acorn and becomes a mighty oak in their own right, sooner rather than later.
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